


Nobody Likes Brussels Sprouts

by vampireisthenewblack



Category: Being Human (UK)
Genre: Bad Jokes, Christmas Dinner, Christmas Fluff, Fluff, Gen, Humour, Post-Season/Series 4 AU, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-20
Updated: 2013-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-05 07:33:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1091260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vampireisthenewblack/pseuds/vampireisthenewblack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Hal attempts to make Christmas perfect, Alex stuffs the turkey, and Tom tells bad jokes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nobody Likes Brussels Sprouts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pinstripedoc](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinstripedoc/gifts).



> Dear pinstripedoc, I do hope you like it. I've gone with Hal and Tom and Alex (consider time well fudged) because they're my current faves (and are freshest in my mind). It may be a ~~little~~ lot cracky in places, but sometimes that's canon ;)
> 
> This is my first Being Human fic, and I'm almost certain it's my first gen+humour fic. Thank you so much to my beta and my britpicker, you know who you are ♥

"Tom has never had a proper Christmas," Hal says, lifting the Brussels sprouts out of his shopping bag. "This is for him."

Alex lifts an eyebrow. "Sounds more like it's for you. You're all 'Pearl did this' and 'Pearl did that' and now the kitchen looks like Tesco's threw up on it." She waves her arm and Hal follows the movement, taking in crunchy-plastic-wrapped vegetables and shrink-wrapped turkey and jars and packets and tins covering every available surface. She stops, lunges for an oblong box. "Ooh, crackers." Her voice rises in excitement. "I love crackers."

Hal yanks them out of her hands. "Don't you dare," he says. "They're for Christmas."

"Which is tomorrow." Alex tries to snatch them back, but only succeeds in grabbing hold of one end of the box. "Come on, Hal, let's pull a cracker now, there'll be plenty left."

"There's only six in the box—"

"That's two each, we don't need two each—"

The box breaks, and crackers fly across the kitchen. Frustratingly, Alex gets the bigger half, which she waves at him in victory before pulling the last cracker out and twitching it under his nose. "Grab on."

"No," Hal says, barely controlling the urge to flee. He can't. The shopping needs to be put away, the perishables in the fridge, the tins and jars into the pantry. "Please go away."

Alex grins, drops the broken box, and backs out of the door, brandishing her captured cracker. "Tom," she shouts. "Come pull this."

* * *

Hal's putting the last of the food away in the pantry when Tom slips through the door wearing a pink paper hat. "Hullo, Hal," he says. "Look at my hat. I'm wearing a pink hat."

Hal looks. "You got the bigger half, then, did you?"

"Nope." Tom shakes his head and grins. "Alex doesn't like pink, apparently. Which is weird, 'cause she's a girl." He waves a tiny slip of paper. "I got the joke, too. Want to hear it?"

Hal feels at least a little gratified by Tom's excitement. "Yes," he says. "I should very much like to hear your joke, Tom. Go ahead."

"Alright." Tom pulls himself up straight, lifts his chin as he begins to read. "What do you call a cat in the desert?" He lifts his eyes, tries to keep a straight face, but fails, his mouth twisting into a smirk.

Hal blinks. "I don't know," he says. "What _do_ you call a cat in the desert?"

Tom grins. "Sandy Claws."

Hal stares. "That's not— That's not actually funny." He lifts the broken cracker box off the counter, picks it up carefully to avoid tipping them all out onto the floor again, and turns it over to inspect it. "I knew I should have spent the extra eight pounds for the good ones."

* * *

"I thought you cooked for your father and brothers," Hal says as Alex looks in horror at the defrosted turkey the next morning.

She pokes at it with one finger and her face twists even more. "I didn't do _Christmas_ ," she says. "We used to invade my nana every year." She pulls another face as she picks the sealed plastic bag of giblets up by the corner. "What the hell is this?"

"Entrails," Hal says, snatching them off her. "It can't be that hard. I found a recipe for stuffing, all the ingredients, all you have to do is follow the instructions."

"Why did the turkey cross the road?" Tom says.

"To get to the other side." Hal looks up. "What?"

Tom's sitting at the table, broken box of crackers spread out before him. He's got a green hat on this time. "No, mate. It was the chicken's day off." He looks down at the table, flicks a small piece of plastic with his thumbnail. "Look. A frog came out of it."

"Oh my god," Hal says, crossing the space in two paces and snatching the broken cracker box away. "We _need_ these. They're not all for you, you know. They're for after we've eaten, at the table, we're going to have turkey and Brussels sprouts and Christmas pudding and it's going to be perfect, a proper Christmas, because—" He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes. "Just because. So leave them alone."

"I don't like Brussels sprouts," Tom says.

Hal stashes the box under the counter, closes the cupboard. "Nobody likes Brussels sprouts, Tom, but it's Christmas."

"Rubbish. You're just not cooking them right," Alex says. "Seriously. You've got to steam them, not boil the almighty crap out of them. I love Brussels sprouts."

"You can't eat them though, can you, 'cause you're a ghost." Tom flicks the plastic frog again, and it skips across the table. "'Why cook something if nobody's going to eat it?"

Hal takes a deep breath, grits his teeth, and pastes a tight smile onto his face. "Alex is going to stuff the turkey, I'm going to _steam_ the Brussels sprouts, and we're all going to have a wonderful Christmas, do you hear me?"

"Hang on, why do _I_ have to stick my hand up the bird's backside?"

Hal whirls around, just barely controlling his emotions. " _Alex._ "

"All right," she says, holding her hands up in surrender. "I'll stuff the bloody turkey, but if you both die of food poisoning, don't come crying to me."

"He's a vampire," Tom says, flicking at his frog again. "He can't die of food poisoning. I might, but I won't be crying about it. I'll be dead."

"You're not going to die, Tom," Hal says. "I'm sure Alex will take the utmost care. Also, she's a ghost, so she doesn't have to worry about washing her hands or wearing gloves."

"That's true." Tom lifts his head and offers Hal a smile. "But I weren't worried. Me and McNair used to cook a chicken in a camp oven over the fire on Christmas if it weren't a full moon. It was great. Very festive." He looks up at the kitchen door where Hal has stuck tinsel around the windows. "Never had anything like this, though. This is nice." He grins.

"See, Alex?" He turns back to Alex, and he's pleased to see that she's at least looking at the stuffing recipe. "We're going to have the most wonderful Christmas."

"With turkey." She pulls a face.

"And crackers," Tom says. "Can I have another cracker, Hal? Can I?"

Tom's excitement vindicates what Hal is trying to do, but also makes him realise that the simplest things, a cheap plastic frog and a bad joke, a bit of tinsel on the door, are enough. It doesn't have to be the perfect place settings, or the traditional dish. "Yes, Tom. You can have another cracker."

Tom's grin almost splits his face, and he leaps out of his chair and lunges for the cupboard.

"But just one. The others are for after dinner."

"Yeah, of course, Hal," Tom says, pulling a cracker out and holding it high like a prize.

"Now you lot can piss off," Alex says, bending down to inspect the bird on the counter. "If I'm going to cock this up, I'm doing it without you two watching. I'll call you when I need the potatoes doing." She lifts her head. "And _I'm_ doing the Brussels sprouts. We'll have at least one thing done properly."

"But I don't like Brussels sprouts," Tom says. "Neither does Hal. They'll be all smelly and—"

" _Out_ ," Alex says.

* * *

The cracker pops with the smell of fireworks. Hal gets the larger end, and Tom's face falls as he drops his eyes to the short end still clutched in his fingers.

"Wait," Hal says, and he reaches out and grabs Tom's wrist. He turns Tom's hand over, and tips the contents of the cracker out into it.

Tom looks up, his mouth spreading into a grin. "Really, Hal? Are you sure?"

"Yes." Hal smiles. "Tell me your joke, Tom."

Tom smiles as he unwraps the coiled strip of paper. He flattens it out with his fingers, his eyes move over it, he frowns for a second, and then snorts. "There's two snowmen in a field, right?" He lifts his eyes, and they sparkle with barely repressed laughter. "One turns to the other and says, "I don't know about you, but I can smell carrots."

* * *

It's not like the Christmases Hal spent with Leo and Pearl. There's no special Christmas tablecloth embroidered with holly leaves and berries, half a century old but looking like brand-new because Pearl stored it so carefully. There are no shiny gilt napkin rings—there are no napkins, just a roll of paper towels they found in one of the cupboards. The tinsel they found in a cardboard box in the attic and strung up around the house is so old Hal can see the twisted strings down the centre, and the velvet Santa that sits under the front window is faded and worn, grey plastic exposed in places.

But they have a real tree. "Never had a proper Christmas tree," Tom says as he sits beneath it, surrounded by torn pieces of brightly coloured paper stuck together with too-long strips of cellotape. He has a purple hat on now, a collection of small plastic trinkets before him on the floor. There's a turkey leg in his hand, mostly decimated, and he salutes Alex with it before taking another bite.

"You're welcome," Alex says. She's pleased with herself, but won't admit it, at least as far as the turkey is concerned. "What did I tell you about the Brussels sprouts, Hal?" she says. She's on the couch, but looks back to where Hal is still sitting at the table, having another helping of everything, including the sprouts. 

Hal doesn't like to think ill of the proper dead, but Pearl was prone to boiling all the goodness out of things. "Yes," he says. "Might have to wait a bit before we have desert."

"Here's one for you, Hal," Tom says, unwrapping yet another tiny slip of paper. "What do you get when you cross a snowman with a vampire?"

"I don't know," Hal says. "What _do_ you get when you cross a snowman with a vampire?"

Tom looks up and grins. "Frostbite."

This time, a real smile spreads across Hal's face. He nods. "I shall remember that."

Tom unpeels yet another joke. "This one's yours, Alex. What's the most popular Christmas wine?"

"I'd much rather have a beer, to be honest," Alex says. "You know, if I could drink at all. God. Beer. What I'd do for a beer right now."

"I don't like Brussels sprouts," Tom says.

"Dammit," Hal spits, and drops his fork. It hits the plate with a clatter. "I forgot to get the wine."

_fin._

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed reading, please hit the [Kudos ♥] button.
> 
> [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/vampthenewblack/) | [dreamwidth](http://vampthenewblack.dreamwidth.org)  
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